Yet another fully self-contained episode which (as far as I know) deviates from the manga, called “filler” for short. This time a mysterious force from Inaho’s cat turns all the girls at school into catgirls.
It’s pretty blatant otaku pandering, and much lower on nudity potential than the previous episodes, but it’s not a total loss. Especially for catgirl fans.
Aki sets down a box of paperwork. You gotta love the intentional pause for the boob clap, accompanied with the proper sound effect.
Catgirls wag some tail.
Some subtle panty censorship.
Not sure if they add nipples here, but it wouldn’t be a stretch to suggest it’s plausible.
Pretty good chance that we’ll get a bare butt here on BD.
They could add some nipple areola here if they decide to be pretty aggressive on blu-ray.
Just imagining a pair of fat nipples on those incredible bazooms makes my day a little brighter.
A while back I made a comment about how filler can actually be a good thing in ecchi. I still stand by that comment, but I’m also starting to regret it. When I said what I said, I had such things in mind as hot springs episodes or some other thinly veiled excuse to get as much naked time in as possible. Maken-ki Two just feels like filler, not the super-fun kind, just the regular kind.
And that kind of makes me worried about this show selling well, as Samurai Bride took a similar route (inane filler type episodes with high production values) and it utterly bombed. All I ever ask for is boobage, but I’m in the minority. Most anime fans, even most ecchi fans, still care about story. And right now, the story element of this anime is totally non-existent. Personally, I’m fine with that, but will Japanese otaku feel the same?
Hopefully they do, but I’m starting to have some doubts. Though Xebec has done well with some series, they are not immune to bombing on ecchi either (Softenni, Uppotte!!). Even Kaneko’s works have not sold as well as you’d imagine- Seikon no Qwaser II and Manyuu Hikenchou each averaged under 4000 BD sales per volume.
I think Maken-Ki Two has a lot of things going for it. I think it’s doing a lot of smart things, but the fact that they are just forgetting about story is going to be a problem, most likely. Even if it’s TV original, non-canonical stuff, they need to start giving us at least a little reason to care about what’s going on beyond the fanservice. Among the ecchi series that have succeeded financially, the common link between them all was that they were memorable series. So far, Maken-Ki Two has been fun, but forgettable.
